Best Games About Surfing The Web

Summary

• Mundane tasks such as browsing the internet are given an exciting spin in these titles.
• Internet-based games offer intriguing storytelling and interactive experiences.
• Games such as Her Story and The Roottrees Are Dead task the player with navigating the web to uncover the truth.

Games always have their players accomplishing tasks of varying scope, be it just passing their school exams to saving their world from a deadly dragon. It all depends on the story they want to tell, but most games opt more towards the latter, tending to stay away from the mundane every day, or if they do tread there, putting their own spin on things.

A few of these games task their players with surfing the web, visiting various web pages and completing activities, whether it is the whole game or just a portion of it. With the internet such a known quality almost everyone accesses daily, these developers have done their best to make these games truly intriguing, and massively fun to play.

8

Grand Theft Auto V

Occasionally, the Player Might Need to Log Online

Grand Theft Auto 5 is without a doubt one of the biggest games of all time, giving players a massive map to explore, and so much to see and do. This freedom gives players the choice to partake in side-quests, tour around the city to see the sights, and cause all sorts of mischief that can grab the wrong sort of attention.

Once introduced in the game, players have the freedom to access it whenever they wish to choose, as their protagonist’s smartphone can be used as a web surfing tool. There is quite a lengthy list of websites they can access, from sites deciding to outing cults to purchasing cars. Every website is interactive, unlike previous entries in the franchise, hugely expanding on what players can do on the internet, and ensuring players will open up their phones occasionally.

7

Simulacra

Solve a Missing Person’s Case Using a Smartphone

• Platforms: PC, Android, iOS, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
• Released: October 26th, 2017
• Developers: Kaigan Games
• Genres: Horror

The player character finds a smartphone, which, as it turns out, belongs to a missing girl named Anna. Upon booting it up, players see a message crying for help before a video pops up showing her terrified and begging no one to come looking for her. Of course, the player is going to completely disregard the message and dive right into the mystery, helped or hindered by other characters such as best friend Ashley, ex-boyfriend Greg, and Taylor, who she met on a dating app.

Alongside messaging these characters, the player also needs to gain access to certain apps on Anna’s phone, such as her email, Jabbr, Spark and Surfer, which are all online apps, of course. By looking through Anna’s accounts, they gain new information needed to progress, coming one step closer to finding her.

6

KinitoPET

This Virtual Assistant is Not All What It Seems

• Platforms: PC
• Released: January 9th, 2024
• Developers: troy_en
• Genres: Horror

What if Microsoft’s Clippy was a lot more sinister in nature? Well, this is a question rarely asked, but one KinitoPET answered nonetheless. An unassuming virtual desktop assistant that promises smart technology to talk and adapt to the users’ actions, in order to give them some friendly and intelligent company while going about their business online.

But, this is a horror game, and not everything is going to remain innocent and normal. KinitoPET soon devolves into a nightmare, with the pet wanting their experience to be everlasting, and maybe it won’t remain shackled to the internet. What’s more, it can even alter some computer settings to make players feel like they are the ones truly being stalked by KinitoPET.

5

Her Story

View Her Story Through Short Clips and Transcripts

Missing person Simon turns up dead some time later, and it would seem he was murdered. Suspicions are immediately placed on Hannah, his wife, who confirms they did argue before he went missing. Her interviews are uploaded to the database as short clips for the player to watch through to determine the truth of her story.

The player must navigate through the database to watch these clips and order them correctly using the software on the computer, while they can also plug in keywords or phrases to find more clips to gain more insight into Hannah’s story. There are also transcripts so they can read back anything they watched, allowing players to step into the shoes of a detective. Careful attention must be placed while playing so they can know the truth.

4

The Roottrees Are Dead

Navigate the 90s Web to Piece Together the Family Tree

In the late 90s, a private plane crashed, and on it were a few members of an old and prestigious family the Roottrees’s that had a net worth in the billions. Due to a will penned by the great-great-grandfather, the money must be evenly distributed to those that are a Roottree by birth, not through marriage. This is where the player comes in, who must cobble together a sprawling family tree to correctly identify the blood relatives of all Roottrees, to ensure the money goes to the right people.

In order to succeed in their task, players will spend most of their time scouring the internet for clues, plugging in names and scraps of information into the search engine to learn more about all the family members. It is a tough task, as information is not spoon-fed to the player, and they will have to rely on what they know so far, and a little bit of thinking skills in order to succeed.

3

Home Safety Hotline

Read Through the Entries to Identify the Threat

In a world where strange creatures and events occur to everyday people, the Home Safety Hotline was founded, an emergency line for those dealing with these bizarre occurrences. Those manning the line, specifically the player protagonist, must take calls and navigate through the online database to corroborate the information given with the entries in the database, and send the correct one over to the caller so they know exactly what to do.

The internet functionality is limited in Home Safety Hotline, as outside of checking emails, players will be limited to the database. But every call will have them double-checking entries, even after they are an hour or so in and think they have most of it memorized. To make it more difficult, sometimes the database goes offline for maintenance, so players better hope they memorized enough to make it through.

2

Welcome to the Game 2

Hunt For Codes on the Deep Web

• Platforms: PC
• Released: April 3rd, 2018
• Developers: Reflect Studios
• Genres: Horror

After watching a stream of a young girl begging to be saved, the main character takes it upon themselves to try and gain access to the Red Room to see if they can save her, given some pointers by the mysterious Adam who gives them the low-down on the deep web they will be exploring, along with the various dangers of doing so. After a brief tutorial, players are thrown into the deep end, and left to find Amalia themselves.

Along with navigating various websites and hunting for URLs to other deep web pages and scraps of code needed to access the red room, players also need to contend with threats such as the police, Noir, Lucas, and the Breather, all who can catch the player unaware while completing their tasks. They must also combat hacks by winning minigames, as if they didn’t have enough to worry about. One of the toughest horror games out there with some truly shocking and disgusting websites, Welcome to the Game 2 is not for the faint of heart.

1

Hypnospace Outlaw

Explore and Monitor the Early Age Internet

If anyone was on the internet in the late 90s and early 2000s, Hypnospace Outlaw will be the ultimate nostalgia trip. As a moderator on hypnospace, an internet service people can access while sleeping thanks to the HypnOS headband, players must navigate through various web pages that include some MySpace-like pages, and report any bannable offenses they find. Players will receive emails including what particular violations they are on the lookout for, and will gain access to further zones the more they progress.

As such, Hypnospace Outlaw has no other gameplay then tabbing through varying websites, yet still manages to create a phenomenal simulation puzzle game that is at times puzzling, funny, and even dark when Y2K hits, killing users who were in hypnospace at the time. Those looking for a solid web-surfing experience or feeling nostalgic for the internet of yore, they need to check out Hypnospace Outlaw.